Iron nanoparticles implanted metal-organic-frameworks based Fe-N-C catalysts for high-performance oxygen reduction reaction

The Fe-N-C active site containing non-precious metal catalysts (NPMCs) as the substitute to platinum-based catalysts are highly desired for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) but it's a huge challenge to achieve such a high-performance and long term stabile one. In this study, the iron nanoparticles-implanted polyaniline (Fe-Nps@PANI) metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has been synthesized through metal-ligand strategy via a simple chemical process. Strong interaction has been observed between Feivp, and nitrogen in PANI suggesting abundant Fe-N-C active sites in the Fe-Nps@PANI/rGO catalyst. Owing to the Fe-N-C active sites with less amount of oxygenated carbon in the molecular scale and mesoporous channels with the synergy of PANI and graphene in microscale, the Fe-Nps@PANI/rGO catalyst exhibits excellent catalytic activity and stability than the benchmark Pt/C catalyst towards ORR in respect to the onset potential and half-wave potential. Very importantly, the Fe-N-C active sites in Fe-Nps@PANI are comparatively better active against SCNand methanol poisoning than bare Fe-Nps/rGO during ORR.